


Birds Of Paradise

by mxgicxltrxgedy



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: M/M, flower shop/tattoo artist au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-20
Updated: 2017-12-20
Packaged: 2019-02-17 06:25:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13070991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mxgicxltrxgedy/pseuds/mxgicxltrxgedy
Summary: When Stan was eighteen he started running a flower shop and now as he's three years older he's made friends with the tattoo apprentice next door, Mike.





	Birds Of Paradise

Stan loved his little shop. When he started it at the age of eighteen, he didn’t expect to love it as much as he did now. He started the flower shop because he loved gardening and he thought it would be the good way to make some money while he put himself through his business classes at the local community college. Now, Stan is twenty-one; this job was his main aspiration and his eighteen-year-old plans of being an accountant were thrown out the window.

Stan lived his life with sun shining through long windows and his life was surrounded by bright colors. The heat from his UV lamps in the shop made him feel warm and cozy on a winter day. Stan’s building mates (the owners of the other half of his building, a tattoo parlor) were nice and didn’t make his life hell like his past mates. Life is good.

Stan’s life is full of flowers and lovely people needing bouquets for their significant others, their friends, people needed well wishes, and weddings. It was sunflowers and roses, lilies and daisies, carnations and hydrangeas. Stan had his loving friends and a good relationship with his parents. Life is good.

Life had gotten even better for him when the bell rung on his shop after lunch on a sunny Wednesday.

Stan had been moving around the orange clay pots, making sure the matured flowers that were the prettiest were out in the shop so all his customers could see the pretty ones, and all the ones that were getting a little old or the ones that weren’t matured yet were in his small greenhouse in the back. Stan had his little grey and green cloth gloves on and his shop was looking fuller and pretty. The bell above the door jingled and Stan turned to face whomever came in.

A man wearing a black Henley with the sleeves cut off and a chain with a class ring hung around his neck. His dark skin had a few dark thin lines of tattoos. He was glancing around the shop with nervous eyes. Stan set his small pot of petunias on the counter and made his way behind it to greet the guy.

“Hi, how can I help you?”

The guy, who couldn’t be more than a couple months older than Stan himself (and very good looking, if you asked Stan), wrung his finger together and spoke. “My mom and my grandma are coming into town for a visit and I need anything you can throw together.”

“All right, I can set you up.” Stan pulled the fingers of his gloves and took them up and got some hand sanitizer. “When are they coming in?”

“Tonight.” The man spoke, leaning his hands on the counter. “They surprised me with a call while they were at the airport, and I can’t call 1800 flowers, not after last time.”

Stan’s eyes widened, and he nodded his head with affirmation. “Okay, we can do this, don’t worry. Do you know what flowers or what colors they like?”

The man sighed with relief and let his shoulder’s drop. “My mom likes irises and the color yellow and my grandma like all the small pink flowers. That I do know.”

“Yeah, we can do that. Give me a quick minute to pull out some stuff from the back and let’s see what we can make up, yeah?”

The guy nodded his head and let himself lean down a little on his elbows.

Stan moved quickly throughout the back, grabbing small plastic cups of flowers as samples to show him, the guy who he had yet to be introduced to.

Stan loved making compositions and loved it when his mind ran through all the possibilities of different flower combinations. It was what he used to do with numbers that made him good at accounting and what he still did sometimes with his intrusive thoughts (Only sometimes now. The medication he took now helped him a lot more than his fourteen-year-old self would like to admit). Colors and sizes and shapes went through quick.

Stan pulled out some yellow pansies (pink was the most popular for pansies so he kept those out front and all the other colors in the back) and some more orange than yellow poppies. He had some irises up front and wait to get those later.

For the second bouquet, Stan grabbed some baby pink peonies and some of the same shade of carnations, then some light lavender colored petunias. With his arms full of small, plastic pots of flowers he pushed to the swinging door with his back and laid the small plastic pots on the counter in front of the guy. “It’s two different bouquets, right?” 

The man nodded and spoke. “Uh, yeah.”

Stan smiled and grouped the flowers into two separate bouquets. Then he moved away from the counter and grabbed one of the pots from the window, the pot that had irises in it. Stan started his little rant, his little flower rant. “This is what I’m thinking: we have the irises and we have the yellow pansies to make the purple stand out. Then we have some orange poppies to make the blue in the irises stand out. We just need something white or cream colored to make all the other colors stand out.”

The guy leaned forward. “Aren’t there little flowers that look like this,” his fingers brushed over the petals of the yellow pansy, “but like, smaller and like cream colored? I think I did a piece with them a few weeks ago. Johnny somethings.”

“Johhny Jump Ups.” Stan spoke in recognition. “I think I have some of those, not a lot of people ask for them. Let me check.”

Stan went through the back and went through his little plots and he found the Johnny Jump Ups, small and white and a related to the pansies. The ones had a little touch of lavender on the ends of the petals but that would go well so there wasn’t too much yellow in the bouquet. Stan came back through the door.

“These are perfect.” Stan sat them down. “They’re small enough to fill it up but pretty enough so they’re not out of place.”

“Yeah, I did a few flashes with them, I got used to drawing them.” The customer said. With Stan’s confused look he explained. “I’m an apprentice at the tattoo parlor next door, it was such a relief to have this shop next door with them coming to town.”

“Oh, yeah cool. I guess you do a lot of flower stuff.”

“Yeah, almost once a day, probably even more once I’m not an apprentice and I’m a fully licensed artist.”

“That’s really cool.” Stan smiled, and they were both leaned in over the flowers and he looked at the guy, and for some reason he actually noticed him.

Dark brown eyes and hair that was long on the top and faded on the sides with two stipes shaved on the right side. He was handsome, and Stan reveled in it. Stan wasn’t closeted by any means, but he didn’t announce that he was gay to the entire world all the time at work. He leaned back, showing off the other flowers.

“And for your grandma’s set I was thinking these peonies with the carnations and the light purple petunias. It’s a lot softer than the other one.”

“You thought of all of that on the spot back there?” He asked, with a chuckle, still leaned over the counter. “Are you a wizard?”

Stan took a moment to consider it. “Yes. The flower wizard, making sure that everyone has something pretty.”

The man laughed. “Good, I would only trust a flower wizard to make these bouquets.”

“So you like the idea? The flowers all together?”

“Yeah, it’s amazing, perfect, thank you.”

Stan went to the drawer behind the counter and got one of his order slips, a big pad of paper with the white, yellow, and pink sheets. The customer info, the types of flowers, everything that Stan could think of to make sure that he got everything right.

He began writing, one slip he wrote the flowers iris, pansies, poppies, Johnny Jump Ups, the on the other he wrote peonies, carnations, and petunias.

“Can I get your name?” Stan asked, both for the order and because he wanted to know it. The man was cute, a good sense of humor, and he knew a little bit about flowers? Sign Stan up.

(He was by no means closeted, all of his friends knew and his high school bullies are long gone in New England. He didn’t put a rainbow flag in his shop to announce it to the whole world, but when cute men come in your shop for flowers? Can Stan take it as a sign?)

“Michael. Mike Hanlon.”

“Alright, I’ll get this form all filled out for you. You said they were coming in tonight, when will you need them by?

Mike put his hands up, “Don’t drop other stuff to get mine done quickly. I don’t want you to-“

Stan stopped him. “Mike, it’s two bouquets. I can do them pretty quick. What time do you need them done?”

Mike bit his lip and thought. “I can come by before 6, or you could drop them off in the parlor considering that our door goes into my room.”

Stan thought about the door, the one that connected their two shops. Stan had never gone through the door, as courtesy more than not wanting to (c’mon Stan was always curious). “I always wondered what I’d find on the other side. I guess I didn’t want to accidentally run into something awkward or something.”

Mike laughed. “Just little ol’ me. Thank you so much for doing this, on such short notice.”

Should Stan say what he thought? You’re cute so it’s fine? “It’s no problem, honestly. I’m just going to need your phone number to complete the order form.”

“And not for yourself? I’m hurt.” Mike had a teasing smile on his lips and Stan’s ear went red with embarrassment because Mike managed to guess what Stan was thinking.

“I guess I’ll have to use it for myself too then, just so that your feelings aren’t hurt.” Stan was quick with his wits, he got that from being friends with his bunch of boys. Making sure you didn’t crumble under the pressure of a bad burn, Stan learned how to one up his friends.

“Good. It’d be a shame if I find this cute guy and he wouldn’t call me on a professional courtesy.”

Stan’s blush moved from his ears to his cheeks. “Well, what is that phone number?”

Mike rattled off the phone number and Stan wrote it down on the order form. When he capped his pen and looked back up at Mike, he was closer than he was when Stan had looked down.

Mike held his phone out to Stan, showing him the new contact page that he opened his phone up to. Stan bit his lip. “How will I know it’s the cute flower shop guy who’s calling me and not one of my clients?”

Stan grinned but tried to keep it so he wasn’t showing it to much and he took the phone in his fingers. He typed out his name and his number, making sure that everything was right so that Mike had the right number. “I guess I can give it to you then, just so you don’t get confused with one of your clients and not so you can text me later and ask me to hang out.”

“Or something else?” Mike’s voice was raised, and his smile was teasing. Stan hadn’t had someone come on to him as strong as this since he went to the gay bar for the first (and last) time.

(That was a mistake that his friends had made, and he was dragged along. Gay bars make their drinks to strong and Stan found out the hard way.)

“Or something else.” Stan agreed.

Stan went back to the order form and ripped it out of the pad, taking the pink carbon copies and giving them to Mike. “These are your receipts.”

Mike took them, making sure to go the extra mile and touch Stan’s hand when he did. It was obvious to Stan that he did it on purpose, but he didn’t mind.

(Sure, he’d have to wash his hands later, but he would wait until Mike had left so he wasn’t acting out with it.)

“Thank you for doing this, Stanley; it means a lot.”

“Stan,” he corrected. “or Stanley, if you prefer.” He forgot about the name embroidered on his shirt that had his full frst name.

“Okay, Stan.” Mike smiled. “I think my break’s about to end soon, so I should probably be getting back before they fire me or something.”

Mike pulled out his wallet and looked at the price on his receipt and paid. Stan put the cash in his register, typing fast on the keypad so he could get back to talking to Mike as soon as possible. Stan went back to the counter and held the receipt form in his hand, curling the corner of the paper in between his fingers to keep them busy with his anxious energy talking to Mike. “I’ll be by. Before six, that’s what you said?”

“Yeah, thank you so much for this.”

Stan laughed a little. “It’s my job to make bouquets, you don’t have to thank me.”

“That doesn’t mean I don’t have to thank you.” Mike glanced at his watch, then glancing back up with the same nervous eyes that he had when he walked in the door. “Now I really have to go, but I’ll see you later.”

“See you later.”

Mike walked out the door, the bell jingling behind him. Stan watched and when he saw Mike through the window, Mike was glancing inside looking back at Stan. They made the other smile just at the thought of them not wanting to leave and wanting to look at each other more.

When Mike was out of Stan’s sight he let out a breath, of relief or of something else; Stan didn’t know. He stood in his spot behind the counter and let his wrists that still held his paper fall to the counter so he had something to ground himself to, and maybe, he should start on those bouquets.

* * *

It was five fifty-five. Stan had two bouquets in his hands, the one for Mike’s mother wrapped in a silvery white paper to cover the stems and the one for his grandmother in a gold. He held them in his hands and he waited by the door that was shared between the tattoo parlor and his flower shoppe. Mike said he could come through the door, that it goes to his room in the studio, but Stan felt that him walking through the door was too much, too casual. At least for right now.

He went through the greenhouse to get to the door that separated the backrooms from the shop that Stan made to be the prettiest part because if a flower shop wasn’t pretty no one wanted to shop there and that was half of Stan’s job in running the place.

He took out a sign from behind the counter and made his way out the front door of his shop. The sign that said ‘Sorry, you missed me! I’ll be back in ten minutes!’ He didn’t really close the shop until around eight thirty, because some people like to get last minute flowers for dates, but he didn’t open until nine thirty to make up for it. He didn’t like to leave the store alone, in case he missed someone, but because he was the only one working today (he usually had his friends pick up shifts on the weekends when they needed some extra cash) so he would have to leave the shop alone for a few minutes.

Stan made sure he still had his keys in his pocket and walked out the door, balancing the flower bouquets and the sign in his hands while he locked the door behind him and made his way out in the cooling air. He hung up his sign on the little nook that hung outside on the door frame. This sign went over his open sign and once it was on there okay Stan walked the few feet to the door of the tattoo parlor.

In just walking the few feet Stan could see the differences between his shop and theirs. Stan’s windows were filled with green leaves and the dusty yellow that reminded him of some old Spanish building, along with all the orange clay pots and the beige clay vases that his friend, Bill, made sometimes when he was having blocks with his writing.

When Stan walked over in front of the windows of the tattoo parlor he saw the walls were painted a dark red and the black leather furniture. The decals on the windows blocked some of his view but he could see the different pictures on the walls of the small tattoos that you could get.

Stan opened the door and then felt incredibly out of place in the parlor. He felt awkward in his work button down and his khaki shorts and tennis shoes.

“Can I get you some help?” Stan’s head turned to the sound of the reception desk.

Red curly hair and the side of her head pulled into two tight braids. The arms that were covered in a see through pink long sleeve. Black chipped nail polish. Stan recognized the girl behind the counter. “Beverly?”

Beverly was dating Ben and Ben was friends with Stan. Stan and Ben had met in high school, along with all their other friends and with their movie nights Beverly had come along some nights and they had become okay friends, not the best of friends but they could hang out with each other.

“Stanley, hey.” Beverly pushed her curly hair off of her face and sat up a little more. “Can I interest you in a tattoo?”

“I didn’t know you worked here.”

“Ben never mentioned?”

Stan shrugged, the bouquets still in his hands. “He mentioned you were a tattoo artist, I don’t think he mentioned that you worked right next to my flower shop.”

Beverly laughed. “I didn’t know you worked next door. Maybe I can come hang out in there rather than eat in our dirty break room.”

“Hey, I cleaned that break room!” A man around their same age shouted across the room. He had been hunched over a desk and writing something. Stan had barely acknowledged that he was there.

“Not good enough! Apparently!” Beverly shouted back then turned back to Stan. “What can I help you with?”

Stan blushed, and held the flowers tighter in his hands. “I’m actually looking for Mike?”

Beverly smiled and glanced at the flowers in Stan’s hands. Stan recognized the sly smile on Beverly’s face. “Those flowers for Mike?”

“Yeah,” Stan said, then corrected himself. “He made an order and I’m delivering them. I need to deliver them.”

Beverly winked. “Of course, you do. I’ll take you back there.”

Beverly got up from her seat and got out from behind the counter and Stan moved forward. Beverly walked to the hallway in the back and Stan followed, albeit a little slowly trying to take in the parlor as it was showed to him. It was a little bigger than his own shop, but his shop floor was small so his back room would be bigger to hold all of the flowers he had to grow, all of the pots he had to keep and the piles of dirt. the parlor was able to open up all of their shop so anyone could be in it. Stan liked the openness of their floor.

“Mike is apprenticing right now so he’s probably tattooing on a banana or something.” Beverly chuckled, as if it were an inside joke. “Maybe you could be Mike’s first client, eh? Thinking about getting a little flower tattoo in a place where the sun don’t shine?”

Stan blushed. “No, tattoos aren’t really my thing.”

Stan didn’t feel like describing the entirety of being Jewish and having tattoos so he just left it at that. Beverly turned down a hallway and shrugged. “Maybe when you see what Mike can do with a pen will make you change your mind.”

Stan twisted his fingers around the flower stems wrapped in the foil. “Yeah, maybe.”

Beverly knocked on the door at the end of the hallway and opened the door. “Mikey? You gotta visitor!”

Stan looked through the open door and saw Mike at a desk, a lamp and a few knick-knacks on the table and a tattoo bench in the middle of the room. Mike looked up and then saw Stan behind Beverly. “Thanks Bevvie.”

Beverly stood there and waited. Stan walked through the door, standing beside Beverly rather than behind her. Mike put his pencil down and faced them. “You can leave now, Bev.”

“Maybe I want to stay and watch the show. Stanley wouldn’t mind, would you, Stanley?”

Before Stan could think of a rushed response, Mike stood up and stood facing Bev. He put his hand out and slightly pushed Bev back out of the doorway. Mike put a smile on his face and used his fingers to wave goodbye to her as he closed the door.

“Y’all best not be fucking when I check on you!” She shouted then Stan hear footfalls that were getting softer and quieter as he assumed Bev went down the hallway.

“Yeah, Bev’s not the kindest one in the bunch she’s cool.” Mike said, rubbing the skin on the back of his neck.

“Yeah, I know. I’m friends with her boyfriend.” Stan told him. He sat on the tattoo bench, but he didn’t lay back like you were meant to, just sat down with his knees together and the flowers in his hand. The flowers! “Oh, here are your flowers!”

Mike looked as if he almost forgot about the flowers the same as Stan. “Oh yeah.”

Mike took the flowers from Stan’s hands and held them up and looked at them. “These look better than what you made in the shop. How do you do it?”

Stan smiled. “I thought we talked about that, I’m a flower wizard.”

“Oh right of course.”

Mike sat in his chair, which he rolled so that he was closer to Stan. Stan looked around the room and saw that the room was bare and unlike the lobby of the parlor and didn’t have many frames of drawings or any small tattoos. There were a few, some of snakes or flowers, then some geometric shapes made into wolves and elephants. Then just a few photos that Stan didn’t want to get too close to look at lest he seem too interested and stalkerish.

“You did all those drawings? They’re amazing.” Stan stood up from his seat and stepped closer to look at the drawings even closer, seeing the pen marks making the scratchy sketch lines.

“Thanks,” Mike said. “I actually wanted to ask you something?”

Stan turned away from the drawings and faced Mike, who was still sitting in his chair. “Yeah, sure, ask away.”

Mike bit his lips and Stan noticed him scratching his thumb with his index finger, something Stan did when he was fidgeting too.

“Maybe, if you’re free and if you wanted to, you want to go see a movie with me? Maybe Friday night?”

Stan smiled shyly, but he had to make sure. “Are you asking me out on a date, Mike?”

Mike’s nervous smile dropped, and his eyes widened. “Did I read this the wrong way or?”

“No,” Stan said quickly, hoping to cover up his mistake in Mike thinking he wasn’t into it. ”No, just making sure. I want to go on a date with you. I think we’d have a fun time.”

Mike shoulders dropped and a smile spread across his face. “Okay, cool, yeah.”

Stan and Mike waited in the room in silence, a comfortable one. Stan was not one to just go out with a guy, especially one that he meant that day, but maybe this guy was good? Bev seemed to like him, and that seemed good in Stan’s eyes, even though he didn’t know her well. (Stan trusted Ben and if Ben trusted and loved Bev then that was good enough for Stan.)

Mike had a way to himself, maybe it was the way he spoke or maybe it was the way that held himself but Stan wanted to know more about him, spend more time with him and maybe taking chances that he normally wouldn’t would make it so that Stan would actually get a boyfriend.

“I should probably get going back to my store.” Stan said softly. He didn’t want to go away so soon. “I think maybe you should use my number when you figure out what movie we’re going to see.”

“Yeah, I definitely will.”

Stan, in something that wasn’t Stan at all, touched Mike’s shoulder in saying goodbye. “I guess I’ll see you on Friday?”

“Not unless I visit tomorrow.”

Stan smirked. “The store’s usually slowest in the morning, just for future reference.”

A knock came at the door and Stan jumped at the sudden noise. Then Beverly’s voice called through the door. “Boys! What’s going on in there?”

Stan walked closer to the door and put his hand on the door knob and let him turn the knob and open the door to Beverly who had her ear pressed to the door. When the door was away from her face, she slowly stood up straight. “Have you been standing here the whole time?”

“No,” Beverly stated, very quick with her response. Stan looked at her with his eyebrows raised and she shrugged. “You think I’d waste my time eavesdropping on my dear, dear friends?”

“Yes,” Mike answered. “You definitely would.”

Stan walked past her and turned around to Mike. “You’ll text me later?”

Mike nodded his head with a smile and Beverly looked between them with her head turning back and forth like she was watching a tennis match. Stan laughed at her.

“Well, I’ll see you later then.”

Stan walked out of the room and down the hallway back to his shop. He walked through the lobby, seeing the guy that shouted at Bev earlier and gave a small wave when he looked at Stan. He walked outside and took the sign from the door and went back into his warm and cozy shop, waiting for Friday to come and the text that would start Stan and Mike talking again.


End file.
